


down the road and to the left (it’s never been any further)

by brilligspoons, darthjamtart



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Gen, Rape/Non-con References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-31
Updated: 2011-08-31
Packaged: 2017-10-23 07:26:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/247702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brilligspoons/pseuds/brilligspoons, https://archiveofourown.org/users/darthjamtart/pseuds/darthjamtart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spencer Reid is turning 12 and about to graduate from high school, but he’s finally made friends: there’s JJ, the soccer-playing, straight-A student who used to drink too much; there’s Penelope Garcia, the pigtailed hacker who wears the brightest-colored clothes Spencer’s ever seen; there’s Derek Morgan, the football player who defends him from the other jocks; there’s Emily Prentiss, the friendliest goth in town (not that there are many in their small, rural town); there’s Dave Rossi, in his second attempt at senior year — but only because he refuses to finish his missing PE credits. And there’s Aaron Hotchner — Hotch — who just wants to date Haley Brooks, but doesn’t have the faintest idea how to do so.</p><p>High school is hard enough as it is, but on top of that, someone is drugging and raping girls at parties. As they learn more about the attacks, it becomes clear that Spencer holds the key to figuring out who is responsible, and saving one of their own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	down the road and to the left (it’s never been any further)

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: non-graphic violence, off-screen rape, underage drinking and non-graphic sex.
> 
> Title from “The Fisher King” by Carrie Newcomer.

**Chapter 1: Aaron Hotchner**

Aaron Hotchner has been in love with Haley Brooks since halfway through freshman year when she had been chosen to the play the lead in the spring musical. This seemed to cause some kind of schism within the drama club — the upperclassmen getting all bent out of shape because of “some uppity freshman” landing a starring role, and the lowerclassmen celebrating the success of one of their own. Hotch admits he wasn’t _completely_ paying attention to the inner goings-on of the theatre geeks — right up until Haley stood on a table in the cafeteria and told off a senior boy for insinuating she didn’t have the chops to pull off Dolly Levi.

And then she started singing “So Long, Dearie” right in front of everyone, and Hotch was _gone_.

He had a million opportunities to talk to her after that, but the closest he came to actually doing so was after he joined the theatre crew and managed to knock a gallon of paint all over her.

She laughed it off. Dave laughed his ass off. Hotch settled for watching from afar after that.

Hotch spends the summer before senior year giving himself pep talk after pep talk as he builds sets during drama camp. He and Dave email back and forth about the ridiculous plans Hotch has concocted to ask Haley out (Dave laughs his ass off at all of them, some best friend _he_ is), but even though he has all of July to do something, _anything_ , he ends up climbing into his mom’s car on August 1st without having said more than a ‘hello’ to Haley maybe once the entire trip.

“So, how was drama camp?” Mrs. Hotchner asks.

“The _worst_ ,” Hotch says, and she rolls her eyes. Hotch suspects that Dave has been feeding her information all month, and possibly since Hotch fell in love with Haley in the first place. But whatever, she buys him ice cream on the drive back home, so Hotch is willing to admit his mother is better at this than Dave ever could be.

Dave calls him a week later with more ideas for working up the courage to ask Haley out — unimaginatively called Operation: Ask Haley Out — which Hotch dutifully writes down in his notebook (the one with all the lists he's made about how wonderful and perfect Haley is, and also the entire outline of every plan Dave has ever thought up for him). He tells himself the stupid cartoon hearts he draws around Haley’s name are important strategic symbols.

This mantra works for about three days before Hotch finds himself wandering alone into Daisy’s. He looks around the diner to make sure none of his friends are there before practically throwing himself face-first into a booth, t-shirt sliding between his stomach and the vinyl. _This is the worst day ever,_ he thinks, the fake leather seat warming quickly beneath his cheek. _And I am never listening to Dave again. He gives awful advice, holy crap._

Sighing, Hotch rolls over onto his back. A waitress is standing next to the table, one eyebrow raised disapprovingly.

“What?” he asks.

“Order, or take your teenage angst elsewhere,” she replies. “I've had enough grief from that Rossi kid — I don't need it from you, too.”

“Fine,” Hotch says. “Fries. Loaded.”

She taps her pencil against her order pad.

“Please,” he continues. The waitress nods and heads back to the kitchen. Hotch hears her scream the order to the cook and winces.

He lies there for a while, totally ignoring the sharp pang of dejection in his heart. “I am never going to convince her to go out with me,” he declares out loud. “She’s always going to think I’m an idiot who dumps paint on people’s heads for fun. Some sort of paint fetishist.”

“With a terrible plan like this, I wouldn’t be surprised if she said no to you.”

Hotch tries to sit up but slams his head against the table. “The _fuck_ ,” he says.

A face that's half thick glasses, half wavy brown hair appears in his line of sight. It's the little kid whose IQ is off the charts — Reid, or something. He's got Hotch's notebook out and is flipping through the pages rapidly.

“The plan,” the kid says — slowly, Hotch notes, as if he thinks Hotch is an idiot. “Your plan to ask Haley out. It's really terrible. You're kind of an idiot.”

Hotch immediately thinks of twenty different mean things to say to this kid, but he sits up (properly this time) and just stares at him. The kid is kneeling on the seat, and this just barely raises him high enough to meet Hotch eye-to-eye.

“I am an idiot,” Hotch says. The waitress appears with his loaded fries.

“Making progress, I see,” she says as she sets the plate down in front of him.

“Lucy, can we have two strawberry milkshakes, please?” the kid asks.

“Sure thing, Spencer.”

Hotch starts eating his fries. Spencer steals a handful.

“So,” Spencer says, “I’m writing a paper on teenage behavior for my adolescent psychology class, and I think I can help you. But you really need to stop following Haley around like a puppy.”

“You're a puppy,” Hotch mumbles.

“People do keep patting me on the head like I am one,” Spencer agrees.

Hotch stares at him. “How _old_ are you?” he asks.

“Almost twelve.” Spencer eyes the rapidly-disappearing fries hungrily, and Hotch nudges the plate closer to the kid. What the hell, he thinks, it’s not like they can come up with any plan worse than Dave’s.

 

 **Chapter 2: Jennifer Jareau**

JJ's hair is pulled into a tight ponytail, but loose strands are still sticking to the back of her neck and the side of her cheek. She dumps some water over the top of her head and jogs back onto the soccer field to finish the game. It's late July, and the worst of the summer heat has barely started. She can hardly think about the long stretch of August ahead.

Her team wins on a lucky kick — she passes to Jordan, far out on the edge of the field, a broad, open expanse between her teammate and the net. They're well-matched against the other team, from a rival sports camp half an hour away, and the breathless “good game!”s they call to each other are heartfelt. It's a home game, and as the other team piles into a bus, she and her teammates run the quick stretch downhill for a victory dip in the lake.

The boys' soccer team is back for dinner that evening, despondent after losing an away game that afternoon. Carlo, sitting next to her, turns pleading eyes on JJ as the dessert tray is passed down the table.

“Consolation pudding, Jayj, come on!” he begs, and makes little whimpering noises at her until she laughs and shoves her half-eaten pudding cup in his direction.

“So are you and Carlo, like, a thing?” Jordan asks her later. They're sitting on the hill at the edge of the cabins, right where the trees meet the field, and someone is strumming an accoustic guitar nearby.

“Soccer camp romance?” JJ asks, and shakes her head, laughing. There are three letters from Will under her pillow: one for each week she's been here. They're not supposed to use cell phones here, and she wonders how many time's Will's forgotten that, how many texts she'll have waiting when she gets home.

Jordan sighs. “I wish a boy would ask me for _my_ pudding,” she says, and that sets JJ off again. “Stop that; it's not dirty!” Jordan shrieks, but it only makes JJ laugh harder.

“Any boy in particular?” JJ asks, when they can breathe again, and Jordan shrugs.

“I dunno. You have it so easy, you know — everyone thinks you're pretty. I bet you never had an awkward pimply phase.”

JJ rolls her eyes, but it's true enough. She gets the odd pimple now and then, but nothing too bad. And she's been called pretty often enough and early enough to believe it through her most self-conscious years. Pretty's all right, JJ thinks, but she's a lot more.

Will gets that.

He’d been waiting for her after the last practice, freshman year, still in his soccer jersey but back in scuffed loafers with no socks. He was leaning against the raised stone garden that separated the field from the parking lot, and the small clusters of daffodils that bloomed through April were mostly crushed and wilting behind him. “JJ,” he said, and stopped. He looked unhappy, and JJ thought that even when she'd spent months holding him at arms length, refusing to acknowledge this thing between them, his face had always lit up when he saw her.

Her hair was sweaty, pulled back into a ponytail, and her bag heavy on her shoulder. She let it drop to the ground and walked forward until she was standing between Will's legs. He bit his lip and looked away from her, across the field where the last stragglers were just now loping back toward the school.

“We're moving,” Will said, and for a moment the “we” was unclear — for one wild, insane moment, she thought that we meant the two of them, or the whole town, anything but what he really meant.

“When?” she asked, and she was startled by how calm her voice sounded.

“At the end of the summer.” He was looking at her again, steady, earnest gaze, and she couldn't stand it, so she stared at the ground. His feet were tan inside his battered shoes. “JJ. I can't — my mom's being transferred to a different base, back in Louisiana.”

“Where you used to live,” JJ said. She looked up in time to catch his nod.

“I'd stay if I could,” Will whispered, and it was centimeters to lean forward and kiss him. She closed her eyes and tried not to think about how far it would be next fall.

He’s still in their small, rural town, now, but by the time she gets home from camp, he’ll be gone. She wonders if he’ll keep texting, keep calling. She wonders if he’s already stopped. Snail mail takes only three days between soccer camp and her home town, but three days are longer than they used to be.

She’ll be a sophomore this year, along with half the soccer team, and her best friends, Emily and Garcia. Maybe she’ll forget about Will long before he forgets about her.

***

They're in the computer lab after school — JJ, Prentiss, and Garcia, although Garcia is the only one actually using a computer. It’s the third week of their sophomore year, and JJ's finishing her homework, while Prentiss draws a tattoo on her own arm in sharpie. It looks nothing like a real tattoo, and Prentiss is scowling at it through her thick veil of teased black hair.

“Okay, got it!” Garcia exclaims, and JJ closes her math notebook, scooting her chair forward to peer at the computer screen. Prentiss closes the sharpie and pretends she's not interested.

“I cross-referenced Will's class schedule at his new school against Facebook, then wrote a script to identify all the blondes in his fourth-period history class. Now, what did his text say?”

JJ checks her phone. “It just says that he's working on a history project with three cheerleaders.” She chews on her thumbnail briefly, until Prentiss pats her consolingly on the back. “He didn't actually say they were blonde,” JJ adds.

“Oh, sweetie,” Garcia says, peering at the computer screen. “Of course they're blonde. But here—” she taps a few keys, and the results flicker and change. “Now we're looking at all the cheerleaders in Will's history class.”

Prentiss frowns. “Did you filter out the ones dating football players?”

Garcia sniffs haughtily. “Of _course_.”

All three lean in to stare at the girls on the monitor.

“What are you doing?”

Garcia shrieks, and all three of them whirl around to face the doorway.

“Spence, you scared us!” JJ says, and Prentiss rolls her eyes.

“We're checking out the competition,” Prentiss says, and Reid hefts his bag awkwardly (it's bigger than he is, and about three times as heavy) and shuffles a few more steps into the room.

“What competition?” Reid asks.

“Will's new cheerleader study-buddies,” Garcia says. “That he is definitely not making out with.”

JJ looks like she might cry, and Reid drops his bag, swooping forward anxiously.

“JJ, you're _so much prettier_ than all those girls!” Reid exclaims, despite having barely glanced at the monitor. Prentiss grins.

“Yeah, JJ,” Prentiss drawls. “Anyway, can we stop wasting our time on this? Will's totally in love with you, and his other texts about the project are all about how the girls he's working with are dumb as posts and think Waterloo is a beach in the Hamptons.”

Reid looks bewildered, but JJ perks up and goes back to her math homework, absent-mindedly patting Reid on the head. Prentiss wheels her chair in closer to Garcia's and lowers her voice.

“Now, my fabulous hacker extraordinaire — let's take a look at the files from the American embassy in Dubai.”

 

 **Chapter 3: Spencer Reid**

Spencer finds the girl huddled in a stairwell, hunched over, head bowed. Her shoulders are shaking, but when he approaches her with a tentative “Hey, are you okay?” he can see that her eyes are dry and burning when her head snaps up.

“Back off!”

Spencer stops short, but doesn’t retreat. Instead, he hefts his overweighted book bag a little higher on his shoulder and raises his chin. “Uh, do you mind if I put my bag down?” he asks.

She shrugs, looking like the tiny movement might break her. “It’s a free country.”

They sit silently for a few minutes, until the girl starts looking twitchy. Finally, she cracks, scowling through her bangs at Spencer. “Hey, kid. What’s your name?”

“Reid. Uh, Spencer. Spencer Reid.”

She snorts. “Elle Greenaway. Aren’t you a little short to be in high school?”

Spencer shrugs with just one shoulder. “I take classes at the community college nearby, sometimes. I, uh, I have an IQ of 187.”

Elle snorts again. “Of course you do.” She stares at the wall, then blinks furiously. “Maybe someday you can figure out why people are so fucked up, since you’re some kind of genius.”

Spencer nods, before realizing that a) there was no question in there, and b) Elle is still talking.

“And maybe you can figure out what happened to my underwear at the party last week, while you’re at it.” She shoves herself up off the wall and offers him a hand, hauling him to his feet. “Thanks for, you know.” She offers him a cracked smile that doesn’t reach her eyes, and hands him his bag, raising an eyebrow at the weight. “See you around, kid.”

***

Diana Reid is sitting at the kitchen table when Spencer gets home. There are books and papers piled in front of her, and she glances up sharply as he closes the front door.

“Spencer?” she calls out, and he hitches his bag up in his shoulder, slipping into the kitchen. She stares, then turns back to her papers.

“Did you eat dinner, mom?” he asks, and when she doesn't answer he fetches bread and peanut butter and jelly from the fridge, fixes her a sandwich. He slides the plate in front of her as unobtrusively as possible.

“Thank you, Spencer,” she says absently, as he's leaving the room.

He smiles all the way up the stairs. Good day.

JJ is the first to invite him over for dinner. It's mid-September, and Spencer stays late to watch JJ practice soccer after school. Her father picks them up in a minivan, with JJ's little brother in the back. He's ten, and can't stop talking about the book he's just finished reading (Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone). Spencer listens politely, although he's never heard of the series.

“And have you read anything good lately, Spencer?” Mr. Jareau asks, and Spencer nods jerkily, pulling an annotated edition of Chaucer's tales out of his backpack.

JJ's mom beats them to the house by a few minutes, so she's already got water on for pasta by the time they get inside. JJ's dad fixes a salad, and Spencer helps JJ set the table — matching plates and cutlery, a soft linen tablecloth.

“Spencer, honey, do you need to call your mom and let her know where you are?” asks Mrs. Jareau, and Spencer shakes his head.

JJ's parents exchange meaningful glances across the table when they think he isn't looking, but his silence is quickly swallowed by the chatter of the other children: JJ, talking about soccer practice and student government, and her little brother's endless fascination with everything Harry Potter. JJ has an older brother, too, but he's away at college.

They don't talk about JJ's older sister, the closed door to the bedroom that’s more like a shrine. But Spencer understands; there are things you don't talk about.

After dinner, Spencer tries to explain that he'll be fine taking the bus home, but JJ's dad insists on driving him, and from the way JJ's mom pretends not to be watching the conversation with thin lips and tense shoulders, Spencer knows this is a battle he won't win.

Mr. Jareau waits while Spencer digs his keys out of his bag and unlocks the front door. The porch light is off, but there's a glimmer of light from the kitchen, and Spencer can see his mother, surrounded by books and papers, before he hears the soft rumble of the minivan's engine as Mr. Jareau drives away.

“Spencer?” Diana calls. “Is that you?”

She stares at him like he's a stranger when he enters the kitchen, and the peanut butter and jelly sandwich ends up on the floor.

“You're trying to poison me!” she screams at him, and he flees up the stairs. Bad day.

***

Hotch and Rossi pick him up for school the next day, and Reid sits quietly in the backseat, listening to their banter.

“What?” Rossi asks. “The ladies like heated seats, and what the ladies like...”

Hotch cranks the temperature up on his side. “It's not just the ladies who like heated seats, Dave,” he says. “These are _nice_. You're driving me to and from school everyday this winter, right? Right.”

“Right,” Rossi grumbles.

“And Reid, too.”

“The seats in the back aren't heated,” Reid says from behind them, “but that's okay, since the car's temperature is quite pleasant regardless.”

“I am not driving that kid around all winter,” Rossi says, but one look from Hotch tells him that he will be, no matter how many times he makes Hotch come over for Sunday dinner.

***

Rossi never can figure out how he keeps getting roped into these things. Hotch, he's been stuck with since they were in diapers, but the others? All of a sudden there's a bunch of _girls_ hanging around, and Hotch isn't even trying to sleep with any of them.

And Rossi isn't allowed to either, apparently.

“Seriously, Dave,” Aaron whispers, earnest and wide-eyed and every inch the golden boy. “You can't hit on them.”

Rossi nods, then leers at JJ, who apparently helps out with the after-school tutoring program along with Hotch. She doesn't notice — she's too busy texting. Prentiss notices, though, and her snicker is like a kick in the balls.

“Why couldn't you make friends with the cheerleaders?” Rossi starts patting his pockets, searching for his flask. Ah, back jeans pocket...fuck, it's empty. Typical.

 

 **Chapter 4: Emily Prentiss**

Emily Prentiss is fifteen and a sophomore and fluent in five different languages (other than English). She's been in the same school system now for almost three years, which is a long time. When they moved back to the States, she knew better than to ask for how long. Even when her mother gives her an answer, it's a lie.

She doesn't count the embassies. She doesn't count the friends she's made and lost. She doesn't count the times her mother broke a promise.

She doesn't count those things anymore.

Her mother enrolled her in a parochial school, where Emily tore long slits in her demure plaid skirts, rolled the waistband to raise the hemline, kept the fabric from shredding too far with long rows of safety pins. She found wildly offensive iron-on patches for the white button-down shirts, and spent detention finding new and exciting ways to lose the top few buttons. It took her a whole six months to be expelled.

At least public school doesn't have uniforms.

Her mother doesn't say a word about the black hair dye, just purses her lips and reminds Emily to finish her Brussels sprouts. She makes Emily remove the piercings — done in a punk classmate's garage, and already infected. When Emily stretches the remaining holes — one in each earlobe, perfectly respectable, her mother just sighs and tells Emily she'll regret this someday.

“Do you regret anything?” Emily asks, but her mother looks away, pretending she didn't hear the question. They don't have those kinds of conversations.

Mostly, they don't have conversations at all.

The apartment is empty most evenings when Emily lets herself in, and she's gotten adept at sneaking out the boy du jour when her mother gets home. She pulls on a bathrobe, pretends she was about to take a shower, and offers to take out the recycling. Then it's a quick dart through the hallway while her mother's back is turned, no time for a kiss goodbye.

JJ holds her hair back when she runs to the bathroom to vomit halfway through second-period Geometry.

“Did you eat something spoiled?” JJ asks. It’s late November, and Emily shrugs, dry-heaving a few times before sagging back and sipping at the cup of water JJ brings her.

“Maybe you have the flu,” suggests Garcia, not even five minutes into fourth-period Biology.

She buys three different pregnancy tests on the way home and tries to remember the words to a single prayer, so she can pray that it's not true.

Derek emails her the notes from their last-period English class. The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. She burns the book in the tub.

She tells JJ and Garcia it's a stomach bug, that it'll be over by the end of the week. She snaps at Reid and feels bad about it, especially when he and Derek swing by her apartment with a copy of the movie (Derek noticed she was missing her copy of the book).

She does her research, and thank god or some liberal politicians, she doesn't need parental consent in this state. But it's way far out past where she can get on public transit, and she doesn't have a car.

Hotch does, but Aaron's so clean-cut and earnest and well-meaning that the thought of telling him why makes her squirm. He kissed Haley on the cheek last month and beamed at everyone for days. That leaves Rossi. Or her mother. Or a cab.

She checks how much the cab fare would be, just in case she can swing that _and_ the cost of the procedure. No such luck.

She corners Rossi after school on a Friday in early December. He's flirting with one of the cheerleaders, of course, and she grabs his arm and pulls him away, spitting out a brusque “excuse me” at the ponytail-twirling blonde in a miniskirt.

“Hey!” Rossi protests, and Prentiss whirls on him, shoving him against the brick wall of their high school.

“Shut the fuck up, Dave,” she hisses, then reconsiders her tone. She is, after all, about to ask for a favor. “She would only have given you crabs,” Prentiss declares, and looks away when Rossi raises an eyebrow.

“You know this for a fact?” Rossi asks, looking intrigued, and Prentiss blushes in spite of herself.

“I need a ride,” she says instead, and is gratified when Rossi doesn't ask where or why, just nods slowly and digs out his keys.

***

Rossi’s been driving for over half an hour before he asks, “So are we getting close?” Prentiss doesn’t even look at him, just keeps staring out the window and cranks up the volume on the classic rock station they’d compromised on.

“You should take the next exit,” she says fifteen minutes later, and that’s it, the Who keeps blasting on the radio and they keep sitting there in total silence except for when Prentiss issues some new directions. West and North and a right onto Main Street, left at the fourth light and here, stop.

He turns off the engine but leaves on the radio, Pink Floyd playing quietly as he takes it in.

“Are you a complete fucking moron?” he asks, and for a moment he thinks Prentiss might actually cry. Instead she purses her lips, a blank expression shuttering over her face, and she gets out of the car. She closes the door gently, even though he can see how much effort she puts into not slamming it.

“You’ll wait,” she says, and it’s not inflected like a question but she might as well be begging.

“Jesus, Emily,” he says. A twist and a tug and the car’s completely off, keys in his hand. “I’m coming in with you.”

He swings an arm over her shoulders and pretends he doesn’t see how relieved she is.

***

Emily Prentiss isn’t known as a good girl, but she is known as a smart one. Mediocre grades don’t conceal her sharp tongue and biting observations on everything from global politics to adolescent social dynamics. High society to high school cafeteria.

It’s why she can pass it off as a stomach bug. Emily Prentiss wouldn’t get pregnant, after all. Emily Prentiss is smarter than that.

Condoms break. Like bones, like hearts. Except she’s never broken a bone, never loved anyone that much.

She wasn’t even the first to have sex, of their little group. JJ confessed it to her and Garcia in the computer labs after school — “I wanted something to remember him by,” JJ said. She kept it secret for half a year after Will left, but not because she was ashamed. There’s a strange sort of pride gleaming in her face when she tells them. Something fierce and possessive.

“He says he loves me,” JJ told them, Garcia listening raptly, hands clenched beneath her chin, leaning forward. Prentiss was spinning in her chair, staring at the ceiling, pretending not to listen. “What does that even mean, at our age? I never thought this would last.”

They’re fifteen. Sophomores. Emily Prentiss is fluent in six different languages (including English) and she doesn’t have a single damn word to say in any of them.

***

Rossi’s car has heated seats, and Prentiss twists the knob as high as it goes and settles back, trying not to grimace. The cramps aren’t as bad as she’d expected, but they’re not exactly a picnic. The heat sinks through her, and half an hour into the ride home she jerks her thumb at a rapidly approaching billboard. “Want to stop for fries?”

The vinyl seats in the diner booth are faded but clean, and Prentiss has just taken a sip of her milkshake when Rossi asks, “So is this guy too young to drive, or just too stoned?”

She glares at him across the table. “Neither.”

Rossi narrows his eyes and reaches for the fries. They eat in silence for a few minutes.

“Jesus, Emily, tell me it wasn’t Ian Doyle.”

Prentiss chokes on her fry. “How did you — no, don’t tell me.” She takes another sip of her milkshake, swallowing hard and blinking rapidly. “You don’t get to judge me for this,” she says at last, her voice hard.

Rossi raises his hands, palms out and fingers spread. “Who’s judging?” he says blandly.

There are a few fries left in the basket, but Prentiss pushes it away from her side of the table. “Let’s go,” she says. She stands, waiting at the edge of the booth for Rossi to join her. Instead, he reaches for a fry, chewing thoughtfully.

“You want me to break his fingers?” he offers, after a moment. Prentiss arches an eyebrow.

“What makes you think I didn’t?”

She spends the car ride home remembering:

 _Prentiss knocked twice on the entrance to Ian Doyle’s garage before keying in the code and ducking underneath the slowly rising door. The room looked just like it did last time she was here, barely a month ago: surprisingly neat for a nineteen-year-old punk’s hangout space, clean carpet and uncluttered coffee table in front of an occupied couch._

 _“Ahem.” Prentiss cleared her throat pointedly, and rolled her eyes when Ian continued leisurely kissing the woman on his lap. “Ian,” she snapped, when it became obvious he wasn’t going to acknowledge her. “I need to talk to you.”_

 _“So talk,” Ian said, his voice muffled by the woman’s neck._

 _“Privately.”_

 _With a long-suffering sigh, Ian emerged from beneath the woman, settling her onto the couch as he rose to his feet. “Anything you have to say to me, you can say in front of Shannon.” He flashed a grin, and Prentiss wondered how she ever found Ian Doyle remotely attractive. Sure, he’d cut a striking figure at the Black Metal Rave last fall — when she’d staggered away from the music at 3 AM, wired but exhausted from all the chemicals coursing through her system, he’d seemed like a punk-rock angel, ushering her into his dark, quiet tent. She woke to a splitting headache and that same flashing grin, Ian’s hands offering her a freshly-brewed mug of coffee._

 __He does have great hands, _Prentiss thought, but even as she remembered how his hands felt on her bare skin, she remembered what else they could do, and why she hadn’t been here in a month._

 _“We’re going to be warriors, Emily,” he’d told her, Irish brogue thick in his voice, eyes gleaming. His fingers flicked over the lighter, and his hands sent the burning Molotov Cocktail sailing through the window of an Episcopalian Church._

 _“Is Shannon one of your ‘warriors?’” Prentiss asked, abandoning her attempts to ignore the other woman, and instantly regretting it._

 _Ian chuckled. It wasn’t a pleasant sound. “What do you want, Emily?”_

 _“I’m pregnant.” She knew as soon as she said it that she was in the wrong place, that she hadn’t thought this through. Ian started toward her abruptly, then stopped short, wary._

 _“You’re not the marryin’ type,” he said, narrow-eyed, remembering. Her eyes widened._

 _“No! God, no. That’s not why I’m here.” She paused, biting her lip. “I need money. To take care of it.” Shannon, still on the couch, let out a sharp, hissing breath._

 _He stared at her, uncomprehending at first, then rage filled his eyes. His hands curled into fists at his sides, and he raised one, unfurling a single, eloquent finger._

 _“Fuck you, Emily Prentiss.”_

 _She could imagine the sound of crunching bone and cartilage, the damage she could wreak if she just reached out. Instead she nodded, tight-lipped, and turned on her heel. She’d just have to get this done herself._

 

 **Chapter 5: Derek Morgan**

Morgan tosses his backpack onto the cafeteria table, straddling one of the benches and leaning forward, arms crossed under his chin. It’s mid-December, and he raises an eyebrow and waits for Prentiss to stop ignoring him.

She takes her time, finishes the page she’s on of _Cat’s Cradle_ , before sliding a bookmark into place and setting the book aside. “Don’t you have some teambuilding exercises to do, or something?”

“Practice ended an hour ago.”

Silence is a kind of endurance sport, and Morgan’s pretty good at those.

Prentiss cracks first. “What do you want, Morgan?”

He jerks his chin at the book she was reading. “Any good?”

“It’s great, if you’re literate.”

Morgan’s smile shows his teeth, and it’s not entirely nice. “I liked _Player Piano_.”

That gets her attention. “You like Vonnegut?” she asks, and he can see her unwinding, curiosity leaching the tension from her spine.

“He’s my favorite author,” Morgan says, and Prentiss straightens abruptly, eyes flashing in a way he hasn’t seen in weeks.

“Mine too!” she says, and she’s leaning in, eagerly engaging him in a discussion of the lesser-known works.

He doesn’t ask what’s been bothering her. If she wants to tell him, she will. God knows Morgan has secrets he never wants to share.

***

They're seated alphabetically in 10th-grade English: first by last name, which puts Derek three rows in, between Lords, Alice, and Nolan, Chloe, and a few days later by first name, which puts him in the second row between Cole Roth and Ellie Tibbetts. Prentiss, Emily, is just one seat over, both times, and sometimes when he's bored (Dickens just isn't Derek's thing), he tries to see shapes in her ridiculous hair out of the corner of his eye. Like watching clouds, except the clouds never catch him staring and throw a mechanical pencil at him when the teacher's back is turned.

There's a note a wrapped around the pencil. When he unrolls it, the handwriting is neat, block letters with an elegant tilt, like she has to force herself not to use proper script.

 _NO, YOU CANNOT BORROW MY EYELINER. BUY YOUR OWN, AND STOP STARING AT ME._

Derek crumples the note before Mr. Freeman sees and assigns him detention — he's got practice after class. But he glares at Prentiss, Emily the next time he catches her eye. Like he needs eyeliner to look this good.

Prentiss is always getting detention. She's late to class a lot, sauntering in halfway through sixth period without her homework or the assigned reading, sometimes without her bag.

They're assigned to work on a project together at the end of September. Mr. Freeman pairs up the class, every other student, so they're all working with someone they don't sit next to. Cole and Ellie are thrilled, but then, Derek's been passing their notes back and forth for weeks.

Prentiss rolls her eyes when he slides into the desk next to hers. “I'm not helping you boost your GPA for some sports scholarship.” There's a hickey on her neck, or possibly some really splotchy makeup. Derek's not really up on goth fashion.

“Who says I need help in this class?” Derek snaps, and Prentiss raises an incredulous eyebrow.

“You can read something other than scoreboards?”

Derek scowls. Maybe he can request a new partner. There's no way he and Prentiss, Emily will ever agree on an author to do a research project on. “I tried reading Edgar Allan Poe, but someone left black lipstick kisses on all the library copies. Your work, I assume?”

She surprises him by laughing. “I only make out with first edition Lovecrafts.”

“Cthulhu only calls if you put out, huh?”

The look she gives him is assessing and appreciative, but not in the way he's used to from the cheerleaders. “Not bad, Morgan.”

He's irrationally pleased that she knows his name.

***

Derek Morgan is ten when his dad dies. The priest says some nice but ultimately empty things about him being in a better place at the funeral, and that's when Morgan decides it just doesn't matter anymore. He starts acting out in school; he stops handing in homework; the teachers give him chance after chance, but none of them really bothers to try to get through to him. Morgan sees his mother’s inability to afford the tuition (despite the scholarships he'd been awarded) as the best thing to ever happen to him since before his dad's death.

His sisters scream and cry when they're told they can't go to the parish school anymore, but they seem to adapt faster than Derek does. He's quiet and sullen on good days, and the trend of not handing in homework but still performing well on tests — when he shows up for them — continues throughout his middle school years and into high school.

Derek's mom doesn't say anything about it. At home he tells her all about his classes; he reads passages of Vonnegut and Heinlein and Asimov with her every night, has in-depth discussions with her about history and art and anything else he can remember hearing his teachers talk about. When he hands her his report cards with C's and D's, she smiles at him, tells him he can do better and to keep trying, trying, trying.

He joins the football team in freshman year, and while he's good at it, he doesn't really _click_ with any of the guys. Coach makes sure Derek's included in all the team activities, of course, but there's only so much he can do.

Derek starts spending most of his free time in the library in sophomore year, carefully hiding himself in the stacks so as to avoid teachers hounding him about late papers, and that is where he meets the infamous, the _fabulous_ , the amazing — Penelope Garcia.

It happens like this: in early October, Derek finds some of his teammates pushing this little kid into a locker. He thinks the kid's name is Spencer (or something), and he's like a friggin' genius, but whatever, it doesn't matter — he's not about to _stand by_ while some kid gets bullied.

He shoves them out of the way, yelling at them to back off.

“We're just having a little fun,” one of them says. Derek shoves him extra hard in response.

Once they've cleared out, Derek opens the locker. The kid stares up at him.

“You okay?” Derek asks. He gets a nod. “Good. They're gone. Bell's just rung, too, so you might want to run to whatever you've got next.” Derek has lunch period then, so he watches the kid run down the hall before heading over to the library.

He can never find a stool or chair or _anything_ when he needs one, and despite having grown six inches since he started high school, he still can't reach some of the books on the top shelves. There's a text on social psychology that the librarians swear up and down is physically in the school library, and Derek's _finally_ found it only it's not on a shelf, it's on the top of the shelving unit.

“Of _course_ it is,” Derek mutters as he finds a foothold on the second shelf.

“They make ladders for that, you know.”

And then Derek slips and falls and lands on his back, and the next thing he knows is that a girl with curly blond hair (pulled into two pigtails) and multi-colored bangs is hovering over him.

“You have feathers in your hair,” Derek says.

“Duh,” she says. “Did you hit your head, sweetie?”

Derek sits up. No dizziness or aches. “Doesn't feel like it.”

“Good. You can come with me, then.” She grabs his arm and pulls hard, surprising Derek when she manages to lift him off the ground.

“What? Where are we going?”

“To lunch, stud. You sure you didn't hit your head? You're acting kind of slow.”

Derek tries to take his hand back from her and is unsuccessful. “I don't even _know_ you.”

She stops suddenly and spins around to face him. Derek glances behind her — there are two other girls there, one dressed all in black and covered in dark make-up — the goth kid from his English class — the other wearing khaki pants and a dark blue polo shirt. The little kid with the huge glasses from before is there, too.

“My name,” says the girl in pigtails, “is Penelope Garcia. You may call me Garcia. Or Your Highness, Your Worship, High Princess of All the Land — whatever strikes your fancy. I'm especially fond of the last one.” She points to the goth, who jerks her chin at him in acknowledgment. “This is Emily Prentiss.” And then to the other girl, who smiles. “And Jennifer Jareau, JJ for short. You already know Spencer, of course.”

Garcia pokes him in the chest. “You, my delicious muffin of studliness, are Derek Morgan, our new best friend. Any questions?”

Derek can't think of any.

 

 **Chapter 6: The Team**

The dinner party is Garcia’s idea. Her understanding of foreign embassies clearly comes from having read a few too many romance novels, but the truth is, Emily does know more than she ever wanted to about flatware and its proper usage. She picks a weekend in mid-October to host, when her mother will be in Washington, D.C., so they can crack open some of the nicer bottles of wine without getting caught. Or at least without getting caught right away.

She even irons the tablecloth. It’s the little things.

Rossi shows up first, but only because she lied to him about what time it was starting. “Here, you can help me with the place cards,” she says, thrusting a stack of tiny, exquisite pieces of paper at him.

He gives everyone fake titles, but Garcia still squeals happily when she sees hers. She’s second to arrive, having offered to help, and she has Morgan in tow. Derek’s scowling, but he offers Emily a truly lovely bouquet of flowers. “Mom said it would be polite,” he explains, and Emily hides a smile behind the petals.

“I’ll find a vase,” she says.

JJ is next, and she’s managed to polish off most of the hors d’oeuvres before Hotch and Reid show up, twenty minutes late and missing Reid’s glasses. “I’m sorry, Emily,” Reid is apologizing before they’re through the door, and Hotch looks even more serious than usual.

“I’m pretty sure one of the football players stole them,” he whispers to Emily as he passes her, and she darts a glance at Morgan, who’s busy flirting outrageously with Garcia.

“Should we tell the others?”

Hotch shakes his head. “I’ll tell Morgan. We’ll sort it out on Monday.” He meanders over to the table, perfectly laid out, and eyeballs his place card. “Lord Poo-Bah of Pussy-Whipped Set Monkeys? Did you let Dave write these?”

“I was just impressed how much text he managed to fit on the cards,” Prentiss replies. Her own place card reads something even less flattering and totally unfit to print.

By the end of the evening, they’ve polished off four of her mother’s pretty good bottles of wine, and one of the _really_ good ones, because Rossi is fucking terrible at following instructions. JJ still can’t tell the difference between a salad fork and a dessert fork, despite both Prentiss _and_ Reid explaining it multiple times — Reid hadn’t even needed any coaching, he’d just blinked owlishly at Prentiss and informed her that he’d glanced at an old etiquette book a year ago while researching the history of class hierarchies in America.

The wine is excellent, especially that one bottle, although Prentiss suspects she will be in epic amounts of trouble when her mother finds out. “Jesus fucking Christ, Rossi,” she gripes at him, and Morgan perks up a bit from the other end of the table.

“Hey, aren’t you supposed to be Catholic?” he asks with all the lackluster outrage of someone who thinks he’s supposed to care and really doesn’t. Prentiss is very familiar with that sort of tone.

“Lapsed,” Rossi mumbles, peering into his wine glass, which is somehow, magically, empty. Again.

“Lapsed,” Prentiss confirms, and raises a glass, surreptitiously nudging the bottle toward Rossi so he can join them for the toast. “To lost faith and found families,” she declares, and Hotch smiles, pink-cheeked.

“Lost and found,” he echoes, and Garcia and JJ start the clinking and then can’t seem to stop. Reid clinks with his water glass, looking dubious when Rossi offers him a small sip of the good wine. He tries it anyway, and makes a face at the taste.

***

The conversation turns to school gossip, eventually — mostly which soccer players are throwing parties in the upcoming months, and which football player is dating the most cheerleaders at one time (Rossi is still bitter that he can never get away with that shit).

“Hey, did you hear about that junior girl who ended up in the hospital?” JJ asks, and Garcia nods.

“So sad.”

“I heard she tried to kill herself,” Prentiss adds, and Hotch frowns.

“Elle Greenaway,” he says softly. “I tutored her last year.”

Reid straightens up so fast he spills water all down his shirt. “Elle Greenaway tried to kill herself?”

JJ hands him a napkin. “Yeah. Did you know her, Spence?”

He shakes his head, then nods, then shakes his head again. “Not really.”

***

Somehow, Spencer ends up tagging along with JJ and Garcia to a Halloween party hosted by Jessica Brooks, a junior on the soccer team (and Haley’s younger sister). It’s supposed to be one of the bigger events of the school year — not that he really cares. He would’ve preferred staying home and watching a few episodes of _Star Trek_ , to be honest, but Garcia declares early that week that he needs the “high school experience,” considering he’ll be graduating before he can even claim “teen” as part of his age. The party, she says after JJ’s extended the invitation to their lunch table, is being held only a few blocks from his house — it’d be easy enough for him to leave and go home if he started feeling uncomfortable.

Hotch, as it turns out, has already stolen a pirate get-up from the theatre club for his costume, and Garcia and JJ makes grandiose plans to deck themselves out like zombies. Morgan decides he wants to join them on the zombies idea once he’s told.

“What about you, Dave?” Hotch asks. Rossi waves his hand in the air.

“Oh, you know,” he says. “I’ll be something. Or nothing. Maybe I won’t even show up, how about that?”

Prentiss snorts. “Please,” she says, “all those unchaperoned girls in slinky kitten outfits? You’ll be there with bells on, pervert.” Morgan muffles his laughter with the Heinlein he’d been reading before zombies were mentioned.

“What about you, Prentiss?” Morgan asks. “Want in on the zombies with us, or are you just going as yourself?”

“Not telling,” she sing-songs, grinning wickedly at him.

“Spencer, I have the _best_ idea for you,” Garcia says. “Meet me at my locker before you go home, okay?”

Spencer very strongly wishes he hadn’t waited for her when she finally produces a Mickey Mouse hat and gloves from her backpack. “You can’t actually be serious about this,” he says.

But, as with most things, there is no saying “no” to Penelope Garcia. “You only have to wear the hat and gloves,” she promises. “I won’t force shorts and suspenders on you in this weather.”

She dutifully stops by his house at 7:30 the night of the party, waves to his mother who ignores them both (a bad night), and pulls him down the sidewalk toward Jessica and Haley’s house.

“Are you sure her parents are going to be okay with us just...showing up?” he asks. Garcia snorts.

“Honey, that’s really not how high school parties work. I’d be surprised if her parents are even home tonight.”

Spencer silently boggles at the idea. Garcia tweaks his nose as they stop in front of a large house that is already overflowing with teenagers in dumb costumes. “Here we are,” she says, sweeping her arm to display everything in sight. “Wonderful, isn’t it? Just don’t drink out of any container that’s been handed to you by a stranger, or has been opened prior to you getting your hands on it.”

“Why?”

He gets his cheeks pinched in response. “Some people are just mean, sweetie,” explains Garcia. “Sometimes they put alcohol in other people’s drinks to see what happens. You stick to Coke that you grab and open yourself, okay, hon? And just stick close to me the entire time.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he responds.

JJ joins them a moment later. “Did you give him the talk?” she asks. Garcia nods and fist bumps her.

“Our young man is to stay with me, or barring that, find you.”

“Or Hotch,” JJ adds. “I had a text from him a minute ago — he’s already here with Rossi. I think some of the alcohol is sponsored by Rossi’s mom.”

“I don’t even want to know what goes on inside that woman’s head that she buys kegs for teenagers,” mutters Garcia. More brightly, she adds, “Okay, kids! Let’s get our Halloween on.”

An hour later, Spencer has lost Garcia, JJ, Hotch, _and_ both elements of his costume. Rossi is nowhere to be found, of course, and neither are Morgan or Prentiss, both of whom had shown up 20 minutes after Spencer and the girls had. After wandering around and getting shoved into walls one too many times, Spencer manages to find his way into an empty bedroom and locks the door behind him before flopping down onto the bed. He’s not _scared_ , really — he’s more annoyed that the girls had given him advice that only brought him so far.

“I should have brought a notebook,” he says into the quiet. “I could have turned all of this into data for my sociology paper.”

Something bulky rams into the bedroom door, startling Spencer. Insistent knocking follows, so he gets up from the bed and unlocks the door. He only opens it a crack, but the person on the other side barges right in, knocking Spencer to the ground. “Hey!” he cries.

The intruder is actually a pair of intruders — one male (and Spencer knows his face but can’t immediately match it with a name from the student roster he memorized over the summer) and one female, the latter of whom is obviously not feeling well. Spencer suddenly feels like _he’s_ the intruder, though he doesn’t quite understand _why_ he should feel this way.

“What the hell?” the male says. “What are you doing here, kid? Get the fuck out.”

“I was here first,” reasons Spencer. “I think that gives me right of way in this room.” The girl ( _Brooks, Jessica_ , the girl hosting the party) groans softly. “Is she okay?”

“She’s fine. I was just...looking for the bathroom. She said something about puking. I think she needs to lie down.”

Spencer doesn’t doubt that’s a plausible explanation, though the girl looks a lot worse than just nauseated. “It’s down the hall that way,” he says. “Third door on your left.” But the male ( _Foyet, George_ , Spencer’s mind finally kicks in) grabs him by the arm and shoves him out of the room.

“She just needs to take a little rest,” Foyet says, and then he shuts the door in Spencer’s face. The lock slides into place. Spencer scowls at the door, wondering if he should go find another empty room for himself, or if it’s time to just go home.

“Spencer!”

He whips around and sees Hotch motioning to him from around another bedroom door. His face is angry, stony and furious.

“What’s wrong?” Spencer calls over the _thumpathumpa_ of the music. “What happened?”

“JJ’s drink got spiked while she wasn’t looking,” Hotch explains. “We need to get her out of here, but we can’t take her back to her parents like this.”

Spencer blinks, forgetting his pique over getting kicked out of the other room. He checks his watch: 10:27 PM. Chances are his mother has passed out by now and won’t be awake until much later in the morning. “We can take her back to mine,” he declares. “She can sleep in the guest room. What does she need?”

“Water,” Garcia’s disembodied voice says, “lots of water. And lots of sleep. I think her parents aren’t expecting her back until tomorrow afternoon anyway.”

“Okay,” Hotch says. He’s still seething mad — understandably so, now that Spencer knows what’s going on. “Okay. Morgan, Penelope, do you have her? Good. Spence, lead the way to yours. Hopefully no one will stop us before we get there.”

Garcia and Morgan each have one of JJ’s arms wrapped around their necks, and they walk her out of the room as carefully as they can. Prentiss appears after them, though Spencer barely recognizes her in understated makeup and an outfit he remembers seeing in one of JJ’s J.Crew catalogues. She grabs Spencer’s hand, saying, “Stick close to us, kid.” Louder, she asks, “Where’s Dave? He drove, right?”

“Yeah, but god knows where he’s fucked off to and if he’ll even be in good enough condition to actually drive,” Hotch replies.

“Who cares?” Prentiss says. “I swiped his car keys an hour ago, and I only had a beer. Let’s take his.” Hotch hesitates. “Let me put it this way — there are probably cops everywhere right now, looking for a chance to bust any party they can find. We can run into them on our feet with a drugged-up JJ between us, or we steal Dave’s car and drive carefully back to Spence’s place with no one the wiser. Except Dave who will bitch at us for the rest of our lives, but he was going to do that anyway.”

“Steal the car,” Garcia and Morgan say in unison.

“Fine, whatever,” Hotch says. “Let’s go.”

***

In the aftermath of the Halloween incident, Spencer forgets to mention what happened with Foyet and Jessica to the rest of the group. He’s more concerned with making sure JJ is okay the next morning than anything else, and then he doesn’t really know if it’s any of his business. Maybe, he thinks, Jessica really was just feeling ill. Spencer has observed enough of his classmates’ behaviors that night to indicate that it was very well possible — and Foyet has no record with the school to set off any warning bells.

It’s not possible for him to forget entirely, of course, but he shrugs it off as best he can. There’s no point in distracting any of the others from their schoolwork and extracurricular activities, and as November rolls on, their teachers start to make noises about midterms and midyear reviews.

 

 **Chapter 7: David Rossi**

They’ve been back from winter break for two and a half weeks when Haley Brooks sits down across the table from Hotch and steals his soda right out of his hands. He stares at her; she stares back.

“I had a conversation with Spencer Reid yesterday morning,” she says. “We have homeroom together. He’s kind of cool for a twelve-year-old.”

“Spencer is cool, period,” Hotch hears himself saying. He very nearly slaps his hand over his mouth after doing so but stops himself. Haley smiles and sips at the soda.

“Yeah,” she says. “You, on the other hand, are kind of an idiot.”

Hotch blinks. “Spencer told me the same thing,” he replies.

“Good,” Haley says, still smiling over the plastic cup at him. “Now that we’re all in agreement, want to go to the movies tonight?”

Hotch _maybe_ owes Spencer milkshakes for the rest of their natural lives.

They go see the new Jennifer Anniston rom-com, and once they’ve found seats, Haley turns to him and says, “I have an enormous hard-on for Jennifer, so no speaking while she’s on screen.”

“Only if you promise not to talk during Nicole Kidman’s lines,” he says. Haley snorts.

“ _Please_ ,” she says, “Like I would even _consider it_. Who do you think I am?”

Hotch ends up going to see the movie with her again the next day because they argue the entire time and miss everything. He kisses her cheek at the end of the second viewing — he blushes; she grins and ruffles his hair.

“You’re a sweet one, Aaron Hotchner,” she tells him. “I think I’ll keep you.”

Hotch’s face glows bright red for an entire week.

***

Rossi threatens to kick Hotch out of their lunch group if he doesn’t stop fucking smiling at Haley from across the cafeteria.

“Seriously, Aaron, I will fuck your shit up,” Rossi says.

“Can we maybe not curse in front of the kid?” Morgan asks.

“Spencer’s been getting rides to and from school from Rossi,” Prentiss says from behind her geometry text. “Pretty sure it’s a lost cause at this point.”

“Fuck you, _Emily_ ,” Rossi says. “I’m dealing with a crisis right now.”

“He’s not your boyfriend, _Dave_ ,” Prentiss snaps back. She tosses a piece of lettuce at him. “Besides, he’s been gone for, like, five minutes already.”

Dave looks across the cafeteria. “Fuck,” he says. Garcia pats him on the head and offers Hotch’s abandoned fries as a peace offering. Dave eats all of them out of spite.

***

Rossi hates theatre.

Well, really, he hates the drama club. Hotch is so busy painting sets and adjusting lighting and generally sucking up to Haley with his stupid pirate hat and his stupid _acting_ , that he never has time to hang out with Rossi anymore. With Morgan off at practice, that leaves Rossi with the girls. And Spencer Reid.

God, that kid is annoying.

They're in the computer lab, and Garcia is painting JJ's nails multiple bright colors. “You should paint Dave's nails,” Prentiss suggests, inspecting her own fingers and their peeling layer of black nail polish with an air of nonchalance.

Rossi levels a glare at her, with no effect. “Try it and die,” he growls, and the girls all giggle. The computer beeps, and Garcia hastily shoves the nail polish bottle at him, wheeling around to check her results.

“You could paint my nails,” Reid offers, and the girls exchange looks.

“We should take him _shopping_ ,” says JJ, and Garcia lets out a high-pitched squeal. Prentiss is rolling her eyes, thank god. At least one of them is sane.

“He's not a doll,” Rossi grumbles, then eyes the kid dubiously. Reid _is_ pretty tiny.

Reid shrugs. “It's not like I've got anything better to do. The community college is on spring break, and I've already read everything in the school library.”

JJ and Garcia have a truly terrifying gleam in their eyes. Rossi sighs and stands up, reaching out to pull Reid to his feet. “C'mon, kid. You've got other plans.”

And that was how Rossi ended up spending an entire weekend with that tiny scrawny know-it-all, who turned out not to be so bad after all.

***

Spencer is waiting for him in the school parking lot after school, leaning against Dave’s car as if he’s been there for a while.

“Okay, kid,” Dave says as he gets closer. “You ready for a wild weekend?”

“I thought you were just saying that to JJ and Penelope,” Spencer says.

“I was,” Dave admits, “but if I have to spend this weekend alone in my house with my mom, I’m going to scream.”

“What about your other friends?”

Dave snorts. “You guys and Aaron are the only friends I have here since I got held back,” he says. “Tell anyone I said this, and I will _end you_ , got it?”

Spencer nods fervently. “Got it.” He starts to open the back door.

“What are you doing?”

“Um. Opening your car?” Spencer asks.

Dave sighs and pushes him to the front passenger seat. “I guess you can ride up front this time,” he grumbles. “Since, you know, Aaron’s a dick and has a stupid girlfriend now.” Spencer looks more pleased by the promotion than Dave feels is reasonable. “Don’t get too comfortable, kid, I’m still holding out for Haley dumping his ass.”

“Your antagonism toward Haley is really fascinating,” Spencer declares once they’ve left the lot. “You know, I’m writing a paper about—”

“Don’t start with me, kid.”

“But—”

“No.” Dave signals a right turn and glides into it without stopping. He sees Spencer clutch at his seat belt and smirks. “Now, how well versed are you at Grand Theft Auto?”

Spencer shakes his head. “I’ve never played,” he says. “Mom doesn’t like video games. She says they rot the brain, which is not physically possible, you see—”

“Uh-huh, that’s great, you’re going to learn how to play tonight. And listen, when we get to my house, do not talk to my mother, just follow me right up the stairs and into my room, okay?”

“Why are we avoiding your mom?”

“Because as annoying as I find you, I think Aaron and the girls would prefer you came back to them in the same basic shape they saw you in today,” Dave says.

“What shape is that?” asks Spencer.

“Intact.”

***

Mrs. Rossi, as it turns out, is impossible to avoid since she’s standing in the front doorway waiting for them when they pull up. Spencer thinks she looks harmless, though the look she levels at Dave when he steps out of his car is slightly terrifying.

“Christ,” Dave mutters. “It’s like her spider sense is tingling or something.”

“David, there are groceries in the trunk of my car,” she calls to them. “Bring them inside. And who’s your friend?”

“Spencer Reid, ma’am,” answers Spencer. “I’m in Dave’s calculus class.” He upgrades Mrs. Rossi to _frightening_ when she starts to smile. _Shark-like_ , he thinks. _Am I about to get eaten?_

“Aaron has told me _all_ about you,” she says, beckoning him over. Spencer watches Dave struggle with a massive box of garbage bags and a package of toilet paper. “What would you like for dinner, Spencer Reid?”

“No,” Dave yells, “you are not making dinner. Remember how the kitchen ceiling is still charred?”

“Shut up,” Mrs. Rossi snaps back at him. “I’ll fucking order something, jesus. And don’t forget the box in the back seat, David.”

“I swear to god, if you bought another whole box of gin, I am going to—”

“Ignore him,” she says to Spencer, drawing him into the house. “I think I dropped him on his head one too many times when he was a baby. Now — Indian, or Vietnamese?”

***

Over the course of the evening, Spencer observes that, while Dave and his mother obviously have some level of affection for each other, they are not the conventional mother-and-son type of people. They argue loudly over takeout menus, fight each other for the extra fortune cookie (Mrs. Rossi wins and gives it to Spencer while Dave scowls), and “accidentally” spill sauce and drinks on each other.

In some ways, Spencer thinks, they’re almost more functional than the Jareaus are.

“Does your mom know you’re over here?” Mrs. Rossi asks.

Spencer nods. “I called her while I was still at school and left a message,” he says. “I think she might’ve been teaching a class when I left it. She hasn’t called back, so she’s probably fine.” _Or she’s having a bad day and doesn’t even know I’m not there_ , he thinks. He doesn’t share this out loud, but something on Mrs. Rossi’s face implies she maybe knows what’s going on. Spencer wonders if Hotch had said anything about it, or if maybe it’s, somehow, common knowledge around town at this point.

He hopes that isn’t the case.

“Well, if you’re sure,” she says. “I’m guessing David invited you over to play Grand Theft Auto?”

“Yes, but I’ve never played before.”

She grins. “He’s probably sick and tired of losing to me.”

“Jesus, Mom, will you stop talking as if I’m not here?” Dave says.

“Maybe if you joined in the conversation, I would,” she replies, tossing a balled-up napkin at his head. “Go bring your Xbox downstairs. I’m not about to let _you_ teach him how to play.”

***

Mrs. Rossi, as it turns out, is much better at video games than people might think; she painstakingly teaches Spencer the basics of Grand Theft Auto, declares she’s bored with it, and proceeds to hand both Dave and Spencer their asses for ten consecutive rounds of Mario Kart. Spencer, needless to say, is impressed. And a little intimidated, but not nearly as much as Hotch had implied he would be. He sees now where Dave gets his quiet fierceness — Mrs. Rossi is all understated intensity and passion, protective in a way Spencer hasn’t really seen in most parents he’s met recently.

He likes her. She makes him take home all of their leftover takeout, plus three containers of cranberry oatmeal cookies, so Spencer is reasonably sure she likes him, too.

“Of course she likes you,” Dave grouses on the drive over to Spencer’s later. “It’s practically impossible for anyone _not_ to like you, kid. You have a face.”

“Why wouldn’t I have a face?” Spencer asks. “Unless my face had been ripped off in some horrible accident, but they’ve had some luck with face transplant surgeries lately, so even in that situation I wouldn’t be long without one. Provided my body doesn’t reject the new face, that is.”

Dave snorts. “Whatever, infant. Here’s you — get some sleep, yeah? We’ve got things to do tomorrow. I’ll be by bright and early for you.”

Diana Reid is passed out cold on the living room couch when Spencer finally gets inside the house. The appropriate doses of medicine have disappeared, and there is some food missing from the refrigerator. _Not such a bad night, then,_ Spencer thinks. He carefully covers her with a knitted throw and then heads upstairs to his own room.

‘Bright and early’ apparently means half past noon in Rossi-speak. Spencer has read through two entire encyclopedia sets since breakfast, unsure of whether or not he’d have enough time for a proper chess game, and he’s beginning to wonder if Dave was lying to him when the doorbell finally rings.

“I’m going out, Mom,” he says as he heads for the front door. “I’m taking some money from your wallet, too, in case we decide to get food.”

“Be safe, sweetie,” she says from behind a dusty copy of _Tristan and Iseult_. “Don’t be too late, you hear?”

“Yes, Mom,” Spencer says.

Dave is waiting for him at the door. “Ready, kid?” he asks.

“Yes,” replies Spencer. “Where are we going?”

“That goddamn woman wants new curtains or some shit like that.” A car horn blares — Mrs. Rossi is behind the wheel of the car. “Christ. You’d think she could manage this on her own.”

Five hours and six department and home renovation stores later, Mrs. Rossi declares, “I need some fucking fries after that. Diner, boys?”

Between her and Dave, they order enough food to cover their entire booth table twice over. Spencer is impressed and readily digs in, finds himself entertained by Dave fighting his mother for the last potato skin. (She wins, of course, and triumphantly makes a production of eating it whole.)

A familiar face distracts Spencer from them. “George Foyet,” he says.

Dave squints at him. “Who?” he asks. “That someone in our class?”

“No,” Spencer replies, “I think he’s a junior. He was at the Halloween party, with Jessica.”

“Really? I didn’t think Jessica had a date that night.”

Spencer shrugs. “He said she was sick and that he was taking care of her,” he explains. “And then I got distracted because of—” He stops, unsure of whether or not it’s okay to talk about what happened with JJ in front of Mrs. Rossi. She waves a hand at him.

“It’s fine, honey,” she tells him, “I know all about it.”

“Aaron had to explain why he was bringing my car back the next morning,” Dave says, a vicious grin on his face. “It was _amazing_.”

Spencer imagines it was more frightening than amazing, but he keeps this thought to himself. He watches Foyet slide into a booth next to a girl ( _definitely not a student at our school_ , Spencer confirms). She looks disgruntled by the intrusion, frowns at Foyet as he loops an arm around her neck. Whatever he’s saying to her, she doesn’t like, but Spencer is too far away to hear anything.

Rossi taps the table in front of him. “What are they doing, kid?” he asks, tone hushed.

“I don’t think she wants him there,” Spencer replies. Just then, the girl shoves Foyet out of the booth and onto the floor. “Definitely doesn’t want him there.”

The girl drops some money on the table and slides out of the booth, giving Foyet a wide berth, then walks through the diner and outside. Her face, from what Spencer could tell, is bright red — angry, ashamed, something.

Foyet stands slowly, stays in place for a moment before following her out the door, body language radiating rage. Spencer makes to turn and watch him go, but Rossi grabs his arm and shakes his head.

“Let him go,” he says. “Some guys can’t handle rejection very well. I’m sure he’ll cool off faster without people watching him.”

Mrs. Rossi looks unconvinced but doesn’t disagree. “Dessert, Spencer?” she asks. “You look like a strawberry milkshake kind of boy. Those are my favorites.”

“Yes, please,” he says.

***

The following Monday, as they’re gathering around the lunch table, Rossi surprises Spencer by tossing a tupperware container full of chocolate chip cookies in his lap. “You forgot this,” he grumbles. What Spencer thinks he means is, _My mother loves you and is also a crazy person_. Either way, Spencer would never turn down cookies.

“Did you and Rossi spend all weekend together?” JJ asks.

“Yes,” Spencer replies. “We played Grand Theft Auto with—”

“ _David Rossi_ ,” Penelope hisses. She punches him in the arm. “What is wrong with you? That game is completely inappropriate for him.”

“Ow,” Rossi snaps. “What the fuck, Garcia? Does he _look_ damaged to you?”

“Did he offer you alcohol?” Prentiss asks. “Spencer. You can tell us. We’ll hurt him for you.”

Spencer shakes his head frantically. “No! There was no alcohol. We, uh. We went to the diner on Saturday?”

The girls collectively turn their gazes on Rossi, who scowls at them. “Leave me alone,” he says. “The kid is fine. I brought him cookies. What is wrong with you people?”

“Spencer,” JJ begins, eyes not leaving Rossi for a second, “you sure nothing... _untoward_ happened?”

“ _Untoward_ — what are you, JJ, seventy?” Rossi says.

“Nothing happened,” Spencer assures them. “Mrs. Rossi was there the whole time, anyway. She’s really nice.”

Penelope snorts, turning back to her lunch. “You are probably the first person to ever say that about Mrs. Rossi in the history of ever, Spence.”

“Garcia,” Rossi says, “if you’re bad-mouthing my mother, I will end you.”

“I’d like to see you try, old man,” she says.

***

Spencer somehow convinces Rossi to let Haley sit with them at lunch the next day. Hotch, of course, is thrilled; Morgan and Prentiss give Rossi odd, guarded looks.

“You a pod person now?” Morgan asks, absently pushing the Oreos his mother had packed for him in Spencer’s direction. Spencer grabs for them without looking up from his reading.

“Mind your own goddamn business,” Rossi snaps at him. He’s about to say more, but Haley sits down next to him a moment later. He recoils a little, the movement noticeable enough to make her aware of it.

“Don’t worry,” she says, “I’m not after your innocence.”

“Fuck you, Brooks,” he replies.

“Now, now,” Hotch says as he sits in the seat on Haley’s other side. “No fighting at the lunch table. New rule.”

“We’re not best friends anymore, Aaron,” Rossi grumbles. “I don’t think we can be friends at _all_.”

“Yes, we can.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“ _Yes_.”

“As scintillating as this exchange has been,” Prentiss interrupts, “shut the fuck up.” She reaches across the table and steals a handful of chips off Haley’s plate. Haley raises an eyebrow at her. “And how was _your_ weekend?” Prentiss asks.

“Excellent,” replies Haley. “Aaron and I went hiking on Saturday, and then we had a late dinner at Daisy’s.”

Spencer looks up from the sociology textbook he’d been mulling over. “We must’ve just missed you,” he says. “Mrs. Rossi took us there for dinner, too. _And_ we had milkshakes for dessert.”

“What a coincidence!” Haley exclaims. “We had some of those, too.” Hotch reaches over to Spencer and ruffles his hair before giving Haley a quick kiss on the cheek.

“I hate to say this,” says Morgan, “but you might have had a point, Rossi.”

“I think,” Rossi says, “that I am going to be sick. Violently, violently sick.”

“You’re not the only one,” Prentiss mutters.

Spencer pops an Oreo into his mouth and turns back to his text. “George Foyet was there,” he says offhand. “That’s why I’m going through this book. There was just something so _fascinating_ about his behavior, and I’m writing this paper—”

“The same paper you wanted to put _me_ in, kid?” Rossi says. “What did I tell you about that shit?”

“George Foyet?” Hotch asks. “Who’s he?”

Spencer shrugs. “Junior. Doesn’t have any extracurricular activities that I know of. Not many friends, either—except Jessica, maybe?” He turns to Haley, who looks surprised. “He was helping her at the Halloween party.”

Haley is staring at him, wide-eyed. “Jess isn’t friends with George Foyet.”

The Oreo in Spencer’s mouth tastes funny. “But he was helping her at the party, when she was going to throw up.”

Haley glances at Hotch, then stands abruptly. “Stay away from Foyet. He’s a creep, and I hope he rots in hell.” She snatches up her bag and half-runs from the table.

Prentiss sits back in her chair. “Okay,” she says. “What the hell?”

 

 **Chapter 8: Penelope Garcia**

There's a computer in one of the upstairs bedrooms at Penelope Garcia's first and only middle school party, at the end of 8th grade. She was only going to use the bathroom — there was a line for the one downstairs, and she heard one of the boys puking into it earlier — but then she passes it in the hallway again. The room is dark and quiet, and the computer is just sitting there, all alone. Waiting.

She's not even sure why she was invited to this party. Maybe because she looks wilder than she is. There's a cluster of ravers out on the porch, and their glow bracelets and neon hair match her outfit and the frames of her glasses. Or maybe it's just that everyone was invited.

Penelope's parents tell her she's special, but they're her parents. They have to say that.

The computer is password-protected, but that means nothing. And it's not like she's doing anything wrong — she's not taking anything. She just wants to know. She just wants to see.

There. Emails sent and received about tonight's party. Who's bringing what. Where the beer came from. Is Shannon going to be there, and, oh, what do you mean Jared broke up with his girlfriend during lunch, now the party will totally blow. And here: Kevin wants to invite Penelope Garcia, is that cool? Whatever, man. That chick is weird.

Her cheeks burn, and she pushes herself away from the computer abruptly as someone stumbles into the doorway.

“This isn't the bathroom,” a blonde girl slurs, and Garcia quickly presses the power button, initiating a hard shut down.

“Oh! Uh, the bathroom's this way.” Garcia points down the hallway, and the blonde girl pushes herself off the door frame, staggering a few steps as she tries to straighten.

“'m not usually this uncor- this unco-ordinated,” the blonde girl says, over-enunciating on the last word.

“I'm sure you're not,” Garcia agrees, swooping in to swing one of the blonde girl's arms over her shoulder so they can stagger toward the bathroom together. When they get there, the blonde girls drops to her knees and lurches forward to vomit profusely into the toilet. Garcia makes a grab for the girl's hair, which is falling all over the place, and gets most of it out of the way.

The blonde girl coughs and then sags against the wall. “Thank you,” she says, and her speech is already clearing.

“Oh, um, no problem,” Garcia says, and makes some incoherent gestures around her face. “You have some, uh, some throw-up. In your hair.”

The blonde girl stares at her, unmoving, then smiles slightly. “I'm JJ,” she says, and stretches out a hand.

“Garcia. Penelope. Garcia. I just really hate all diminutive forms of Penelope, and Garcia seems easier for people to remember, so...”

“Nice to meet you, Garcia,” says JJ. “I don't suppose you have a pair of scissors?”

Garcia doesn't, but she thinks she saw some in the room with the computer. She brings them to JJ, who promptly cuts off the section of hair that has vomit in it.

“Are you sure you wanted to do that?” Garcia asks.

“It's a reminder not to do this again,” JJ pronounces solemnly, putting down the scissors and hauling herself up to eye her altered reflection in the bathroom mirror. It's not entirely bad — sort of like she's got long, shaggy bangs on one side.

A siren wails in the distance, and downstairs they can hear a girl shrieking. JJ grins. “Looks like the neighbors called the cops on us,” she says, and Garcia's eyes widen.

“Does that happen at a lot of parties? Because I don't think I want to go to any more parties, if this is what they're usually like.”

JJ laughs. It's quiet and pleasant, not mocking, and she takes Garcia's hand, tugging her out of the bathroom and down the hall, back to the room with the computer. “Not all parties are like this one, no,” she says, and sits down on the floor, shimmying under the bed. “Come on!” she says, and Garcia follows.

“So what were you doing on Brian's computer?” JJ whispers, once they're hidden.

Garcia is grateful that it's too dark for JJ to see her sudden blush. “You're not going to tell, are you? It's just, it was just sitting there, and I just wanted to know more about the party, and why people were invited.”

JJ's silent for a moment, then she chuckles. “Brian's dating Lila — she plays soccer, so our whole team was invited. And then they all invited people, and it sort of snowballed from there. I think Brian and his friends were planning something a lot smaller, but, well, you know.”

“Who did you invite?” Garcia asks, and JJ snorts.

“No one.”

Noise floats up from downstairs — one of the boys saying “oh shit oh shit” over and over, and the heavy tread of the police officers, sweeping through the house. A girl yells something, and JJ tenses.

“I have to go, Lila shouldn't get in trouble by herself.” She pauses, halfway out from under the bed. “Do you have a way home?”

“My parents are picking me up in half an hour,” Garcia says, and JJ's gone.

It’s the last big party Garcia goes to for a long time, but she spends more and more time with JJ, who starts joining Garcia and her friend Emily Prentiss at lunch, sometimes. By the end of freshman year they’ve formed a close-knit trio, bolstered by frequent sleepovers and an enduring ability to ignore the usual boundaries of high school cliques.

***

Garcia has always been a sucker for a pretty face and hot bod — both of which Derek Morgan possesses, and _how_. That is why she lets herself be talked into going to a football team party with Morgan one Saturday night in the middle of April, their sophomore year. To be perfectly honest, she’d rather be running the Molten Core raid with her Alliance guild; her hunter is in serious need of some decent gear, and the boss drops have some _amazing_ stats that would probably cost serious gold on the auction house.

Morgan asks around the lunch table a few days prior to the party if anyone was up for going. It’s sort of obvious, to Garcia, at least, that he doesn’t want to go at all, but being the star quarterback apparently comes with a lot more expectations than Garcia originally presumed. But she shakes her head at him, knowing that there’s a possibility of a raid or heroic being run.

“Sorry, buddy,” JJ says. “Mom and Dad are taking us fishing this weekend. Can’t miss it.”

“Dinner with Haley’s parents” is Hotch’s excuse, and both Prentiss and Rossi say something about their mothers and formal events that make them scowl in tandem. Reid doesn’t even look up from his book.

“Mom’s not going to be very happy this weekend,” he explains, voice muffled by the pages. “She has a meeting with the psychiatrist on Friday afternoon.”

Morgan casts a suffering, puppy dog look back in Garcia’s direction. “Baby doll?” he says. She sighs internally but rests her chin in her palms and bats her eyelashes at him dutifully.

“Talk dirty to me, studliest of muffins,” she says with a wink, “then we’ll talk business.”

Morgan leaves the lunch table with the promise that she’ll be there for the party, as well as owing her two back rubs and a dinner date at the new Panera that opened up in town.

What she was _not_ counting on, of course, was the football team grabbing Morgan about an hour into the party and carrying him off to parts unknown for an unspecified length of time. His face is a mixture of mock terror and apology when he looks back at her from atop their shoulders, so Garcia thinks she will probably be able to forgive him for abandoning her. Eventually. She grabs a can of Coke from the drinks table and wanders into the living room where the sound system is blasting out some rap song of questionable taste ( _at least play some Jay-Z_ , Garcia thinks). Parties are much less interesting when she can’t lean over to JJ or Prentiss or Rossi and make some comment on whatever interesting facts she’s gleaned from this or that student’s record, she decides. She plops herself down on a free section of couch and blows her bangs out of her eyes.

 _Bored. Bored bored bored._ She looks down at her t-shirt (the new one with the Alliance emblem stretched across it, a gift from her brother on her last birthday) and rolls her fingers against the aluminum can. _If I stay here for another half hour, I can probably still make it back in time for the raid._

And that’s when _he_ sits down.

He’s not striking in any way, really, but he smiles at Garcia like he knows her, like he’s got an entire history of inside jokes with her. She can’t help but smile back.

“The Alliance is a bunch of whiny sore losers,” he says.

She startles, and then she says, “The Horde wouldn’t know a Darkheart Hacker from a shiny dirk.”

They trade insults for a while, and Garcia feels a thrill of triumph when he breaks down into laughter first. “Okay, okay, you got me on that one,” he tells her. “You are truly a formidable enemy.”

“You put up an admirable fight, my friend. You have made your ancestors proud.”

He stands suddenly and bows to her. “My lady,” he declares over the pounding bass line. “I believe you are in need of another refreshment. Allow me to fetch you one.” And with a flourish, he runs off in the direction of the kitchen.

Garcia feels a flush come over her. She isn’t used to guys-who-aren’t-her-friends paying this much attention to her, especially not the ones who play Warcraft with her. It’s… _flattering_ , she admits to herself.

A moment later, he returns with a red cup and hands it over to her. “Here you are, milady,” he says. “One beverage. Tip up your cup.”

“And throw your hands up?” Garcia laughs and takes a long drink. The beer is cold enough for her to be able to ignore the fact that she doesn’t really like the taste of it. “Thank you ever so kindly, sir. And who, exactly, are _you_?”

He opens his mouth to answer, but Morgan bounds up to them just then, soaking wet and panting.

“Sorry, mama,” he gasps at her. “Fuckers dumped me in the pool. I only just escaped!”

Garcia giggles. Her head feels lighter somehow, like it used to be anchored to her body and now it’s just sort of _floating_ around the room. She can’t think of anything to say to Morgan. _Strange_ , she thinks. _Don’t I usually have something to say to him?_

“Have something to say to whom, baby girl?” Morgan asks.

Garcia blinks once, twice, and then again. “Oh,” she says, “did I say that out loud?”

“Uh, yeah?”

“Probably because my head isn’t attached to my body anymore,” Garcia reasons. Yes, that makes complete and utter sense. Morgan gapes at her. “What? What’s wrong, Derek?”

She stands up. The room shifts around her like she’s riding a tilt-a-wheel at the county fair. “Oh,” she says. “Maybe I should sit down again.”

The next thing Garcia knows, she’s outside on the curb with Morgan propping her up on one side. “Baby?” she hears herself ask. “Did you find my head?”

“Of course I did,” he replies. “Rossi’s coming to get us, okay?”

“Okay,” Garcia says. And then there’s nothing.

***

The next time Garcia opens her eyes, JJ’s face is the first thing she sees.

“I hate everything,” she says, closing her eyes again.

JJ nods sympathetically and smooths Garcia’s bangs out of her eyes. “You’re going to be fine,” JJ says.

“Where are we?”

“Rossi’s house.” JJ settles down on the bed beside her. Garcia vaguely remembers Morgan saying something about Rossi coming to pick them up. She groans, wonders what Mrs. Rossi must think of her.

“I wouldn’t worry about Rossi’s mom,” says JJ.

Garcia snorts. “When did you become a mind reader?”

“No, seriously, she’s. She’s actually kind of cool? About this, and, you know, everything.”

Garcia is too tired to be skeptical, so she nods. A wave of nausea rolls over her suddenly. “Oh god, need the bathroom,” she gasps out. JJ helps her up and down the hall and to the toilet just in time. “I think,” Garcia says between heaves, “that I’m just gonna stay here all day. Here is nice.”

JJ rubs her back. “You can do whatever you want,” she says.

***

Garcia is feeling slightly more human an hour later, so she allows JJ to help her downstairs and into the living room. She flushes when she sees Prentiss, Rossi, Hotch, and Mrs. Rossi look up from the game of Trivial Pursuit they’re playing. “Uh, hey?”

“Hey,” Prentiss says. “You want in on this game? I’m going to need a buddy to beat Mama Rossi here.”

Mrs. Rossi snorts. “Fat chance of that. I’ll take you _both_ down, no problem.”

“That’s what you think, old lady.”

Garcia squeezes onto the couch next to Hotch, who puts his arm around her shoulders. “Hey, handsome,” she says. “No Haley today?”

“She’s shopping with Jessica,” he explains. “And Morgan took Spence to the 7-Eleven for snacks twenty minutes ago. How are you feeling?”

“Better now that I’ve purged all of my insides from my body,” Garcia says. She takes a long pull from the water bottle JJ had pressed into her hand earlier. “I don’t think I ever, _ever_ want to drink again.”

“That’s sort of why we’re all here today,” Hotch says.

“Wait, is this an intervention? Because I don’t think I drink enough to qualify for one of those.”

“Don’t be stupid,” says Rossi. “We want to know who gave you the goddamn beer.”

Garcia blinks, tries to remember, but the memories of the previous night are slightly blurred. “Some guy,” she says. “He was pretty nice. He came over and talked Warcraft with me for a little while after Morgan got carried off by the football team. Dunno what his name is, Morgan came back before he could tell me.”

A bag of potato chips lands in her lap just as Morgan and Spencer walk past. “Mousy-looking dude,” Morgan says. “Wore glasses. Think he’s a junior, maybe?”

“That could be anyone,” JJ argues.

“I think it’s George Foyet.”

They all turn to look at Spencer. “I saw him at the Halloween party,” he says. “With Jessica? And then Dave and Mrs. Rossi and I saw him at the diner last month with some other girl.”

“Haley got really angry when we mentioned that,” says Rossi. They all look at Hotch, who shakes his head.

“Haley wouldn’t tell me why. She said it was Jessica’s choice, if she wanted to tell.”

Garcia can barely breathe. “So he’s been, what, drugging random girls?” she asks. “And then doing what?”

“Do you really have to ask?” JJ says. She looks sickened. “Jessica wasn’t at soccer practice for a month after that party. She said she had the flu, but she’s been different since then.”

“Elle,” Spencer says suddenly. “Do you think he’s responsible for—”

“And god knows how many other girls,” Rossi interjects.

“What do we do?” Garcia demands. She’s _seething_ mad, furious and a little terrified that she had come that close to being hurt. “Can we tell someone?”

“Well, you’ve told me,” Mrs. Rossi says. “But without proof or catching him in the act, I don’t think we can go to the police yet. We could report Garcia being drugged, but that’s about all at this point.”

“You mean we have to wait until another girl gets hurt,” Hotch says, tone flat and angry.

“Yes,” says Mrs. Rossi firmly. “Keep your eyes open and watch out for each other. Go to every party you hear about. Unless something drastic happens, don’t make a scene, _especially_ at school.” She levels a look at Hotch that sends shivers down Garcia’s spine. “I know you, Aaron Hotchner. _Don’t_ get in trouble.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Hotch grumbles.

 

 **Chapter 9: Teamwork**

The drama club has its final wrap party in mid-May. It goes like most of the events at their high school: the after-party winds up at the house of some junior whose parents are out of town, and somehow half the teenagers in town end up crashing.

Hotch is joking around with a couple of the other theatre techs when Rossi comes up behind him and grabs his shoulder. Hotch, startled, spills the contents of his red plastic cup all over his hand and part of his leg. “What the hell, Dave?” he asks, laughing. “I think you owe me a drink now.”

“Foyet’s here,” Rossi says, leaning in close to make sure only Hotch hears. “Prentiss has been keeping an eye on who’s pouring what drinks, but neither of us have seen Haley recently. I looked around, but I can’t find her.”

Predictably, Hotch sees red. Rossi grabs his shoulder again, tighter this time as Hotch is straining to move past him. “Stop and think for a minute,” Rossi says. “If you start throwing a fit right now, everyone is going to notice and get in your way. Take a second, breathe, follow me. Act natural.”

Through his haze of panic and rage, Hotch sees exactly what Rossi means — the house they’re partying in is mid-size and packed with seniors, juniors, and the few underclassmen who’d been invited. Most of them are drunk or well on their way there. Hotch inhales, exhales, again — “Okay,” he says. “Okay.”

Rossi leads him through the throng of people in the living room and into the kitchen. There he nods to Morgan, who falls in line behind them. Hotch is vaguely grateful for his presence but can’t spare enough concentration to say anything to him; his brain is fixed firmly on the mission at hand.

Find Haley.

Or Foyet.

Hopefully not both at the same time.

***

They search the entire house through twice and find nothing. Prentiss eventually joins them halfway through the second round of seeking, but by then all three boys have come to the conclusion that neither Foyet nor Haley are in the house anymore.

“They couldn’t have gone far,” Rossi insists.

“It’s been, what, thirty minutes since Haley left to get another drink?” Morgan asks. Hotch nods. “Right. Rossi, stay with Hotch. Prentiss and I will head out around the neighborhood; you guys head into the woods behind the house.”

“On it,” Rossi says. Hotch doesn’t argue, doesn’t say anything at all — he is actually _thrumming_ with pent-up aggression, and Rossi has to wonder, briefly, whether he’ll be able to hold Aaron back when ( _if_ ) they finally find Foyet and Haley.

Once in the woods, Hotch takes off like a shot, and Rossi is hard pressed to keep up with him. There’s no particular logic in Hotch’s movements — one moment he’s headed in a straight line, and the next he’s darting to the left or right. Neither of them tries calling for Haley. They both know she’d never have gone with Foyet if she were in any fit state to answer.

Someone draws up behind them, and Rossi whips around — “Goddamnit, Morgan,” he says. “What happened to checking the neighborhood?”

“I think I know where Foyet took her,” Morgan replies. “One of the guys on the team saw him with a blonde about Haley’s height heading down this way. Said he couldn’t see her face, but she was stumbling, and he had a good hold on her.”

“So where did they go?” Hotch demands. “You said you had an idea.”

“There’s an abandoned barn set back a little way from here. Some of the guys like to use it for poker nights, so I’ve been out to it a couple times,” Morgan explains.

“ _Show us_ ,” Rossi says.

Morgan takes off in a sprint down a beaten path that neither Rossi nor Hotch had noticed before. Hotch immediately runs after him, but Prentiss puts a hand on Rossi’s arm, holding him back. “Wait,” she says. “We should let someone know where we’re going. The woods here have shitty cell coverage.”

Rossi nods, and Prentiss whips out her cell and shoots off a text to JJ (still in the house, keeping an eye on the bedrooms) — _Old barn in woods behind Lila’s house. Foyet has Haley. Call cops._ They get a quick reply: _done, go_.

Perfect. Rossi takes off in the direction Morgan had gone in just a moment ago and hopes Hotch hasn’t killed anyone yet.

***

Something in the barn is moaning — Hotch hears it over his and Morgan’s labored breaths, and it _infuriates_ him. He moves to rush inside, but Morgan grabs his shirt and tugs him back.

“I bet you anything Rossi and Prentiss are calling the cops,” Morgan whispers. “Wait until they get here, then we’ll go in. And whatever you do, stay the _fuck_ away from Foyet, if he’s in there. You let us take care of him. Got it?”

“No promises,” Hotch says. Morgan nods but doesn’t let go of his shirt until they hear footsteps behind them. Rossi is obviously unused to running for any length of time, and it takes a long moment before he’s caught back enough breath to be able to even speak.

“JJ is calling the cops,” Prentiss reports. “But I don’t know when they’ll get here. Are we going in?”

“ _Yes_ ,” says Hotch, and he wrenches free from Morgan’s grip and charges right into the barn.

“Shit,” he hears Rossi say, as the others immediately follow after him.

The scene they enter is not _entirely_ what they thought it’d be, but it’s horrifying nonetheless.

Foyet is completely naked. He’s standing on the right side of the barn, has his erection in hand, and doesn’t exactly seem to know that they have just barged right in. Haley, on the other hand, is mostly clothed, with her shirt unbuttoned and open. She’s passed out cold, but she seems to be mostly free of superficial wounds. She’s lying on the ground about a foot from Foyet himself; he’s staring at her, slowly masturbating himself in no apparent rhythm.

“What the fuck,” Morgan says from behind Hotch. Prentiss hisses in wordless agreement.

“Get away from her,” Hotch says, and his voice is almost a growl. Foyet looks up at the sound, then grins at them.

“Come to join the party?” he asks. “I can share.” He’s reaching for the button of Haley’s jeans when Hotch tackles him, slamming Foyet to the ground and hitting him hard across the face, twice, three times before Morgan’s there with him, pinning Foyet and blocking Hotch’s fist.

“I got him, Hotch. Check on Haley.”

Hotch takes a sharp, dragging breath, that almost but doesn’t quite sound like Haley’s name, and then all of his attention is for Haley alone. He brushes her hair out of her face and cradles her head in his lap. “Haley,” he calls, “wake up, jesus christ.” He whips his head around to where Morgan is sitting on Foyet and snaps, “What the _fuck_ did you do to her?”

“Nothing,” Foyet says. The bastard is still _grinning_ , and Hotch wants to rip his face off. “Well, I mean, I drugged her and then dragged her out here. But you seem to have interrupted the fun bit.”

Shouts echo in from the woods outside, and Foyet’s smile dims considerably. He shoves at Morgan, trying to stand, and looks to the back of the barn where there is, presumably, another exit. Morgan presses him down harder.

“Nuh-uh,” Morgan tells him. “You’re staying. You’re done.”

 

 **Epilogue**

JJ conceives the plan a week and a half before graduation day.

She and Penelope are lying in JJ’s bed, shoulder to shoulder, silent. Their knees knock together every other beat — JJ feels they are counting down, or the _tick tock_ of the movement is marching forward, to something. What, though, she doesn’t know.

There’s been an awful air surrounding them ever since Foyet’s arrest. Hotch has been quieter than usual, spending all of his free time after school at the Brooks’ house with Haley. He hasn’t said what happened exactly that night, at least not to Spencer, JJ, or Penelope, and both Morgan and Rossi are surprisingly tight-lipped as well. JJ suspects Prentiss knows _something_ , but — no. As curious as she is, JJ knows it’s not really for her to start nosing around. She can wait until one of them feels like talking.

“You know,” Penelope says, suddenly breaking the silence, “I really hate just sitting around like this.”

“And yet we’ve been sitting here for two hours,” JJ replies. She’s grateful for the distraction from her own thoughts.

Penelope turns onto her side and snuggles closer into JJ. “We should get away. Not for a long time, just a couple hours.”

For a moment, JJ is silent again. She knocks her chin against Penelope’s forehead deliberately. “It’s not a bad idea,” she says. She drums her fingers against her stomach. “We’ll have to do it soon. Graduation is when?”

“Next Saturday,” Penelope says. “Next Sunday, then. We leave early, we go, I don’t know—”

“There’s a state park about an hour’s drive from here. Dad just gave me his old SUV, we could pack some lunches and snacks and whatever.”

“Kidnap the others.”

JJ snorts. “We’ll have to at least tell Mrs. Reid. I don’t think it’s entirely legal for us to be dragging Spence around everywhere like this.”

“Fine, we give him some warning. The rest of them we ambush and bribe into the car. It’ll be _awesome_.”

From there it spirals, downward movement, and the next thing they know they’re cheering for Hotch, Rossi, Haley, and Reid as they cross the stage and receive their diplomas. JJ catches Penelope’s eyes and winks — early the next morning, they’re banging on doors and somehow manage to get even _Rossi_ into the car with minimal fuss (though JJ suspects Mrs. Rossi had a hand in that).

JJ drives them, cautiously staying at the speed limit, despite the heckling that Rossi doles out to her because of it. In the rearview mirror, she sees Morgan and Reid in the very back of the car, arguing half-heartedly over a poker game Morgan _swears_ Reid is cheating at. Hotch is back there, too, staring out the window and smiling a little at their antics (for the first time in what feels like forever). Penelope and Prentiss are singing along to whatever song is playing on the radio, cackling over some innuendo Prentiss makes of the lyrics.

Rossi, who fought for his passenger seat, rubs at his eyes. “I want you both to shut the fuck up,” he says. Prentiss balls up a stray receipt and throws it at his head, still singing.

Rossi crosses his arms and is obviously trying desperately to block them all out — and that's when he starts feeling around in his jacket for something. JJ glances at him momentarily, watches as he pulls out his favorite flask, touches it to his head and then his lips, and sighs happily.

“Seriously?” JJ says.

“Don't even start with me, girlfriend,” he says.


End file.
